IBM wants to enter the field of photovoltaic solar products, which turn sunlight into electricity without releasing the pollutants that are emitted from coal, oil and nuclear power generation.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - IBM (IBM.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) has joined forces with semiconductor process company Tokyo Ohka Kogyo (TOK) (4186.T: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) to develop more efficient solar power technologies to cut the cost of the clean energy source, the companies said on Monday.

The move is the latest by large technology companies to enter the
burgeoning field of photovoltaic solar products, which turn sunlight
into electricity without releasing the pollutants that are emitted from
coal, oil and nuclear power generation.

International Business Machines Corp will contribute its expertise
in manufacturing cells, while TOK will bring its technology used in the
semiconductor industry and for coating LCD panels.

The partnership is seeking to create techniques that double the
efficiency of thin film solar modules, making them capable of
converting more of the sun's rays into electricity.

IBM Research's Supratik Guha, who leads its solar photovoltaic
activities, said the companies do not plan to enter the solar module
production business, but hope to license their technology to producers
in the next two to three years.

"We've already been in discussions with photovoltaic manufacturers," Guha told Reuters in an interview.

"There are problems to be resolved," he said, "but this is the time we're starting to talk to them."

The partnership will focus on developing new methods for printing
copper-indium-gallium-selenide (CIGS) cells that can turn more than 15
percent of sunlight into power -- a significant improvement on the 6
percent to 12 percent efficiency that current solar CIGS makers have
achieved in their fabrication plants.

Guha declined to specify the companies' projected sales from the
technology that will come from their link-up, but described the
potential market as "huge."

Currently, an estimated 90 percent of photovoltaic solar equipment
uses silicon to turn sunlight into electricity. That technology is more
efficient than CIGS, often converting more than 20 percent of sunlight
into power.

But those cells are much thicker than thin-film applications,
limiting how they can be deployed, and they rely on silicon, which has
skyrocketed in price in recent years as the solar industry gobbled up
limited supplies.

IBM looked into various solar technologies before settling on CIGS, Guha said,

"Traditional silicon is a very mature field already, the scope for
dramatic improvement is probably not there," he said. "We felt that
this is where we could make a bigger impact."

Researchers at the U.S. Energy Department's National Renewable
Energy Laboratory announced in April they had set a new efficiency
record of 19.9 percent for CIGS cells, nearing the record for
multicrystalline silicon cells of 20.3 percent.

However, no company has yet to near that CIGS record on the factory
floor, where cells must be quickly mass produced in a cost effective
manner.

Guha said the goal of the partnership was to create a process for
making the cells cheaply enough that they reach "grid parity," the
level in which solar power is competitive with traditional forms of
electricity generation.

"I think that if we can get to a module cost of less than $1 per
watt, and be able to keep a handle on the system costs, then one should
be able to get to grid parity ... photovoltaics still need roughly a 2
(times efficiency) improvement," he said.